Have you heard about this? According to a Publisher’s Weekly article, there was a “decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking.” Included among “adult titles” are books with GLBT stories and characters such as Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” and Helen Boyd‘s “My Husband Betty”. Blogger Mark Probst wrote to Amazon and received this reply:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services

Amazon.com Advantage


The Publisher’s Weekly article has gone on to say that Amazon now claims this was a glitch:

On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.

This was brought to my attention by Helen Boyd, read her comments on the situation at her blog.

UPDATE: Now with Googlebombing goodness:

& GOOGLEBOMB: link to this page that redefines “amazon rank” more accurately.

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